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To cite this article: Pelle Ehn (1998) Manifesto for a digital bauhaus , Digital Creativity, 9:4, 207-217, DOI:
10.1080/14626269808567128
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Digital Creativity 1462-6268/98/0904-0207$12.00
1998, Vol. 9, No. 4 pp. 207-216 © Swets & Zeitlinger
Pelle Ehn
Malmd University, Sweden
pelle.ehn@kk.mah.se
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Manifesto for a Digital Bauhaus
linear as in modern society, but interactive and virtual as well as material 'new worlds', may have
fluid as in a narrative where the reader, the the potential to transcend the inability of
observer, the consumer and the user participate communication that 'the two cultures' of
in its creation. modern society has repeatedly demonstrated
Furthermore, in relation to the Enlight- throughout history and, through a practical
enment project, digital technology relates more amalgamation of'art' and 'technology', the soft
to the 'soft' side than to the 'hard', since and the hard, shape the emerging 'third culture'.
software inherently become codes of values, This is, however, just as with the
aesthetic ideals, ethics and Bauhaus, a project full of
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209
Ehn
• confronted with the natural science culture experiences for ordinary people.
and the search for the truth of universe, not What is needed is humanistic and user-
only as formulas and proofs, but even more oriented education and research that will
in development projects in co-operation develop both a critical stance to information
with engineers and natural science profes- , and communication technology, and at the
sionals in IT and media industry14. same time competence to design, compose,
• forced to take a stance with respect to the and tell stories using the new mediating
s Enlightenment project and our humanistic technologies.
heritage, to ideas and controversies on What is needed are meetings between:
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Manifesto for a Digital Bauhaus
B.
O
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211
Ehn
mon workshops across educational programs, tion technology design from its focus on
joint projects and interdisciplinary courses. organised task systems and specialised tools
One example is the introductory half- towards the both more humble and more
semester course in cultural history and cultural demanding challenge of providing people with
theory with special focus on design, technology 'set-pieces' and 'props' for their continuous
and media that all new students participate in. construction of ever changing lived-in worlds.
The purpose is to create a shared platform with We take a constructivist stance towards the
tools for analysis of modern cultural products notions of space and virtuality. Lived-in space is
and processes and historic understanding of in our view best conceived as the social con-
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cultural development during the last centuries. struction of shared frameworks in which people
orient themselves and act. With this conception
2.2 The research studios the conventional geographical notion of space
We are strongly convinced that close interaction has no predominance or more assured existence
with research is a corner stone in an environ- than spatial patterns brought to life through
ment for creative studies. Hence, it is most people's otherwise mediated interactions.
satisfying that the school has been integrated With this broader notion of 'action
with a network for research into time, space and space' the studio will 're-visit' well-known
interactivity. At the Interactive Institute we will professional environments such as process Design and
explore and constructively use new mediating plants, offices and service shops in order to co-operation.
technology to improve people's social interaction explore how information and communication Design
capabilities and their interaction with material technology can 'soften' or dissolve rigorous exercise
and virtual environments. This will be sup- constructs such as 'the control room', 'the during the
introductory
ported by critical studies and an integrated individualised clerical desk' or 'the service
week at the
artistic program. Research, inspired by the early technician solitude'. School of Art &
Bauhaus schools, will be carried out in studios/ Outside work many people have ambigu- Communication
workshops through close co-operation between ous feelings towards technology. In recent years in Malmo.
researchers, artists and students. Teachers and
students will actively participate in research,
including research into education17.
The first two research studios focus on
space and virtuality and narrativity and commu-
nication.
212
Manifesto for a Digital Bauhaus
o
CD
this image has undergone change and various about narrative structures in digital media and
sub-cultures are defining themselves through their quality: how can they be made challenging,
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relationships to technology. In the larger picture exciting, informative, appropriate and maybe
of shaping everyday technology the studio will even beautiful? This will be investigated in our
address the issue of how information and studio for Narrativity and communication
communication technologies can find their where we will explore interactive storytelling
shape and place among the other useful and emerging in the blending of information and
aesthetically pleasing things that make up our communication technology with literature, film,
everyday environment. television and theatre.
2.2.2 The narrativity and communication studio 2.2.3 The design studies program
Information and communication technology An activity across all studios is design studies of
facilitates the development of new and uncon- third culture creativity. The design of digital
ventional narrative forms, where narrativity is media requires technical and artistic as well as
understood in the broad sense of time—based social and political skills. New actors are
representation. Contemporary and future brought into the design process along with a
narrativity is, however, not to be understood as a plethora of social and political issues to consider.
product of only new technologies. Several How can artistic and technological ideas and
interacting social and cultural changes are and traditions be combined in the design process?
will be influencing the way we tell stories. Which new tools can support these processes?
These are an increasing cultural pluralism, a How can work practices and roles in the design
changing relationship towards concepts of process be renewed when all that is solid melts
authority, power and nationality as well as the into air?
postmodern sense of 'meaning' as something
being continuously related and constructed. As 2.2.4 The artists in residence program
a result of information technology closely Just as we are convinced that research is a
interacting with these changes we can observe a cornerstone for a creative study environment we
new set of aesthetic principles emerge. The are equally convinced that the participation of
boundaries between artists and audiences artists is fundamental to a creative research
becomes blurred and the significance of the environment. Hence, artistic development is an
individual artistic fingerprint grows less impor- integral and fundamental part of the knowledge
tant, as in sampling and hybridisation. There is production at the research centre. Art is a
also a stronger emphasis on the narratives' perceptive act, forming and expressing questions
different and changing contexts, of the story about conditions, contradictions and uncertain-
commenting upon itself. Narrativity and new ties in modern society. The intention to give
media become means of creating syntheses in a people new experiences is an important base for
constantly changing society. Little is yet known innovation in communication processes. Close
213
Ehn
co-operation between artists and researchers is practical way to unite the 'hard' scientific and
necessary for beneficial results in the research technological sides of the Enlightenment project
studios: researchers get in contact with artistic with the 'soft' ethical and aesthetic sides, than
ways of approaching problems that may result in the grand vision from the Bauhaus manifesto
:f new solutions, and artists are inspired by new put in the hands of a young generation of nerds
technologies to developing new forms of and digerati. Hence, this is also our vision of an
expression18. To achieve this the already arena, a meeting place, a school, and a research
initiated five-year Shift program focusing artistic centre for creative and socially useful meetings
conceptions and expressions of time, change, between 'art' and 'technology'.
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human experience and technology will be However, this vision of a digital Bauhaus
complemented by artist in residence programs. can never grow strong isolated in a corner in the
The first is developed in close co-operation with far north of Europe. It has to develop in cross-
the Swedish international artist in residence cultural and international dialogue. Fortunately
program IASPIS19 and is devoted to artistic similar activities are going on at several places
development in digital visual media, design and around the world. What is needed is an
architecture. A similar residence program is international network for creative and socially
planned to address the performing arts. useful digital Bauhaus design that embraces,
penetrates and unites art, science, and technol-
3. Enlightenment and Digital Design ogy and that influences research, study, and
work — a third culture in the digital age at the
A manifesto from the first Bauhaus school door to the twenty-first century and a new
written for the opening of the first Bauhaus millennium.
exhibition in Weimar 1923 envisioned how Digital Bauhaus designers of all countries, unite!
an idealism of activity that embraces, penetrates
and unites art, science, and technology and that
influences research, study, and work, will Notes
construct the art—edifice of Man (Schlemmer,
1
1978) The original version of this manifesto was
The manifesto ends: presented in Swedish as an inaugural address to the
Today we can do no more than to ponder the first students at the opening of the School of Art
total plan, lay the foundations, and prepare the and Communication, Malmo University, Malmo,
Sweden, August 30, 1998. I have made a few
building stones. But we exist! We have the will!
revisions in this English version and added
We are producing! footnotes. As the paper now stands it is intended
In this we can only concur, despite our knowl- both as a general manifesto for creative and socially
edge of the contradictions inherent in the useful digital design and an introduction to the
Bauhaus, despite the historical tendencies away practical implementation of this digital Bauhaus
from a socially responsible movement towards vision in our school in Malmo.
2
technology hostile to man, despite a century of For such a contemporary analysis of'modernity'
obstacles and failures in the attempts to establish see Berman (1982).
3
the third culture that already the early Bauhaus In Liedman (1998) this is a main theme in the
tried to create. analysis of modernity and the Enlightenment
In spite of all this, but certainly not project.
4
without ironic distance and postmodern lost The concept was formulated in 1959 by C.P.
Snow (1959) in an analysis of the division of the
innocence, we see no more constructive and
214
Manifesto for a Digital Bauhaus
two cultures of the arts and the sciences. Snow- by Kevin Kelly (www. edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly/
pleaded not without success for the reorganisation index.html), the editor of Wired, the life style
of education and the social system, for a 'third magazine par excellence for digerati and the nerd
culture' where the two could meet. generation. He suggests that "technology now has
5 its own culture, the third culture, the possibility
The early Bauhaus project had many socially
'revolutionary' influences and relations. Not only culture, the culture of nerds — a culture that is
Walter Gropius but also many other influential starting to go global and mainstream simultane-
Bauhaus masters, including the sculptor Gerhard ously. The culture of science, so long in the shadow
Marcks, were associated with the Working Council of the culture of art, now has another orientation to
for Art and others masters like the painter Lyonel contend with, one grown from its own rib. It
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Feininger and the architect Mies van der Rohe were remains to be seen how the lofty, noble endeavour
members of the Novembergruppe. Another of science deals with the rogue vernacular of
example is the painter Wassily Kandinsky who technology, but for the moment, the nerds of the
joined in 1922. He was one of the driving forces third culture are rising." Other authors discussing
behind RaChN, the Russian interdisciplinary the emerging third culture like John Brockman
'academy for art and research. There was also a (1995) are more worried that researchers and
strong influence from De Stijl and the attempt was scientists have replaced the traditional intellectual
made to create 'collectivist solutions'. The interplay author with no room left for the poet, as science is
between ideas and ideologies were, however, much telling the story of our time. And still others like
more complicated than this. One example is the the science journalist Tor Norretranders have
conflict between on the one hand the strong recognised the grand potential if artists and
interest in the Mazdaznan sect and the focus on scientists were to collaborate. He thus initiated the
meditation, ritual and a primitive form of racism as seminar Third Culture Copenhagen in 1996, creating
expressed by master Johannes Itten and the focus a platform where the two branches could meet.
10
on understanding with industry and the commer- Lifestyle and values of these nerds, digerati,
cial outside world, including commissions, as techies and geeks are well captured in Coupland
prescribed by Walter Gropius. For more back- (1995).
ground on the early Bauhaus see e.g. Droste (1998) 11
Just as the Bauhaus was received as the 'white
or Naylor (1985). gods' in the US in the thirties, now digirati — new
6
For a critique of the 'international style' and gods with a job description to design the future —
especially how it was presented by Hitchcock and stand the risk of hubris, sacrificing the rigors of
Johnsson (1932) see Berman (1982). democratic deliberation for the pleasures of vitalist
7 enthusiasm. Such a warning is raised by Jedediah S.
For such an ironic critique of the 'white gods'
(Gropius, Moholy-Nagy, Mies van der Rohe et al.) Purdy (1998). In a critique of the lifestyle bible of
and their 'success' in the US see Wolfe (1982). the nerd generation he suggests that "the Wired
8
Like in the art works by Charles Ray where temperament is contemptuous of all limits — of
human bodies and human relations are expressed as law, community, morality, place, even embodiment.
anti-human hard plastic dolls. The magazines ideal is the unbounded individual
9
Since the analysis that Snow made forty years ago who, when something looks good to him, will do it,
there have been interesting changes and different buy it, invent it, or become it without delay. This
authors have seen new possibilities for a third temperament seeks comradeship only among its
culture to emerge. The debate was started again in perceived equals in self-invention and world
Brockman (1995), where he argued that a number making; rather than scorn the less exalted, it is
of scientists now had left the ivory tower and likely to forget their existence altogether. Boundless
engaged themselves and their scientific knowledge individualism, in which law, community, and even
in public discourse concerning fundamental activity are radically voluntary, is an adolescent
questions about the meaning of our lives. Another doctrine, a fantasy shopping trip without end. In
way of looking at the 'third culture' is represented contrast, liberal democracy at its best starts from a
recognition of certain limitations that all have in
215
Ehn
common. None of us is perfectly wise, good, or fit call the software design viewpoint. We need to
to rule over others. All of us need help sometimes, rethink the fundamentals of how software is made."
from neighbours and from institutions. We are (Kapor, 1996)
bound by moral obligation to our fellow citizens. 15
The 'Third Culture Cafe' is based on the original
We share stewardship of an irreplaceable natural philosophical cafes emerging in Paris at the end of
S world. This eminently adult temperament is alien the eighties, but our focus will be on technical
o
to the digerati." versus philosophical issues: the role of science,
12
The resolution to set up a new university college technology, the arts and the new media, especially
in Malmo was accepted by the Swedish parliament the emergence of cross-fertilisation and hybrids
in December 1996. It was part of the policy to evolving from the encounter between previously
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216
Manifesto for a Digital Bauhaus
tion in relation to digital technology see Sommerer Snow C.P. (1959) The Two Cultures and the Scientific
& Mignonneau (1998). Revolution. Cambridge University Press, Cam-
19 bridge.
International Artists' Studio Program Sweden
(IASPIS) enables artists from different countries to Sommerer, C. and Mignonneau, L. (eds.) (1998)
stay and work in Sweden and also functions as a Art@Science. Springer-Verlag, Wien.
forum for dialogue between Swedish and interna- Wolfe, T. (1982) From Bauhaus to our house. Jonathan
tional artists. It has studios in Sweden and abroad. Cape, Great Britain.
References
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Acknowledgement
Berman, M. (1982) All That is Solid Melts into Air — During the past year many of my colleagues at
the Experience of Modernity. Simon & Schuster, the school of Art and Communication were
New York. strongly involved in the development of the
Brockman, J. (1995) The Third Culture — Beyondthe ideas in this manifesto as a platform for our
Scientific Revolution. Simon & Schuster, New York. work.
Coupland, D. (1995) Microserfi. Regan Books, New
York.
Droste M. (1998) Bauhaus 1919-1933. Benedikt
Taschen Verlag, Köln. Pelle Ehn is a professor and the director of
Hitchcock, H. and Johnsson, P. (1932) The Interna- research and development at the School of Art
tional Style. Museum of Modern Art, New York. and Communication, Malmö University,
Kapor, M. (1996) A software design manifesto. In Sweden. He is also co-ordinator for the Malmö
Winograd, Terry: Bringing design to software, pp 3 - site of the Interactive Institute, the Swedish
4. ACM Press, New York. national centre for research into interactive
Kelly, K. The Third Culture, www.edge.org/ media and interaction technologies. He has been
3rd_culture/kelly/. strongly involved in the Scandinavian participa-
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated learning—
tory design tradition and is the author of many
legitimate peripheralparticipation. Cambridge
books and articles on information technology
University Press, Cambridge.
and design, including Work Oriented Design of
Liedman S-E. (1998) I skuggan av framtiden —
modernitetens ide'historia (In the Shadow ofthe Computer Artifacts.
Future). Bonnier Alba, Falkenberg.
Marx, K. and Engels, F. (1848) The Communist
Manifesto. Pathfinder, New York, 1987.
Naylor, G. (1985) The Bauhaus Reassessed. Herbert
Press Ltd., London.
Purdy, J. S. (1998) The god of the digirati. The
American Prospect, 37 (March-April 1998), 12-14.
Schlemmer, O. (1978) The Staatliche Bauhaus in
Weimar — manifesto from the first Bauhaus
exhibition in Weimar, 1923. In Wingler, H. M.:
The Bauhaus, pp 55—56. MIT press, Cambridge.
Schön, D. (1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner
— Towards a New Design for Teaching and Learning
in the Professions. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
217